Monday, August 30, 2010

Yesterday ,while going through an entire trunk filled with disintegrating Edwardian clothes,tucked at the bottom of it,was this beautiful indigo bandanna .Even if very fragile,it was the only thing worth picking that day.It was like opening a time capsule and as iconic in my opinion as denim.It basically puts this one as being at least late 1800's.....Anybody interested in reproducing this beauty!??Let's get in business!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

My all time favorite .it's going to be hard to beat this one.solid silver with fake precious stones.one is MIA i don't know were to go for a fixing.....Looks like :"the great Zoltar" from the fortune teller machine.....Nice example of a solid silver novelty skull ring from the 50's....This one is from England ,it's a victorian era solid silver pill box ,transformed into a pendant ....I just need a cool chain for it ....

Did a post ,not so long ago ,about my modest collection of ww2 military rings,or what's left of it .I thought, it'll be interesting to showcase today, some of the other bling i wear as it might give vintage enthousiasts ,a different perspective than your over seen and way over priced mexican biker's rings ......well you tell me .

Straight from the archives, the first trace i was able to find , of this unusual shoe called: ELKSKIN. as advertised in a 1913 mail order catalog from Chicago.....

Another example in a 1917 Montgomery Ward catalog...

1926...same design but bulkier . little more popular perhaps !?....

1934 MW catalog....still advertised as comfort work shoes ....

Another unusual find today ,a little more "of the wall" than your average work boots from the same era....I must admit that at first ,i was a little reluctant to get them,as i thought they were more sports, than work related....silly me right !?perhaps because they were unlined and less rugged than expected for a work shoe. Then while talking to the vendor i suddenly remembered seing something similar ,in one of my earliest mail order catalog and decided to take the risk ,if any.....Well!!! lucky me,i was right .So here they're for you guys to enjoy too, a nice dead stock pair of BLUE RIBBON BROWN'S ELKSIN WORK SHOES from the early 1900's....

here's a little blab about the company's history......

In 1878 George Warren Brown, Alvin L. Bryan, and Jerome Desnoyers founded a women's shoes manufacturing company called Bryan, Brown and Company. Desnoyers retired in 1893, and the company's name was changed to Brown Shoe Company.

By 1900, the St Louis based company, had sales reaching $4 million. At that time John Bush, a Brown Shoe executive, acquired the rights to the "Buster Brown" cartoon character. This character would remain the company's signature logo for decades. The company's early marketing gimmick involved a traveling show of performers dressed as Buster Brown, the company's mascot, who put on shows in theaters, shoe stores, and department stores. Brown Shoe pioneered the idea of marketing specific shoe brands to retailers, rather than the traditional method of traveling store-to-store with samples of every shoe manufactured by the company.

Brown Shoe Company's run-ins with unions began in 1907 when the company opened its first plant outside of St. Louis in response to increased union activity in its existing urban plants. For twenty years following this, the company pursued a policy of opening factories in rural areas, where there was little to no union activity but mostly to cut the production costs . Brown Shoe began hiring women and children in 1911, as labor costs were increasing and it was legal to pay women and children less than men. More than half of the shoe workers in St. Louis were between the ages of fourteen and nineteen .Ironically, most of them,could not afford a pair of the shoes they were making .During the Depression in the 1930s, the company lowered its costs again by lowering the wages it paid to its workers.Same old story right !??......

The company was incorporated in New York in 1913, and went public on the New York Stock Exchange that same year. World War I brought a business boom to the company, as it won contracts to supply shoes to the U.S. troops. The company's second brand of shoes, Naturalizer, was introduced in 1927. Other Brown Shoe brands included Buster Brown, Brownbilt, Tread Straight, and the brand featured on today's post.....Blue Ribbon

Monday, August 16, 2010

Out of the closet where sitting for the last 13 years.....You said inflation !?? i know they are not period perfect but compare with the price tag of your regular LVC 501....555 Valencia plant's id #.......Nice 1955 high rise cut ........

Another round of spring cleaning/organizing led to a new discovery.I'd actually forgotten I had these plus some others.......

These rare jeans were manufactured in the now closed Valencia Street factory as part of the Levi's Capital E vintage range, which ran from 1989 until the launch of the LVC line in 1996.they are the Levi's first attempt to reproduce the good ol'501. Levi has used the valencia st plant,which opened in November 1906,to sew certain products within its high-end vintage collection LVC . It's where the company produced replicas of the famed Nevada jeans .Every times i pass by the old plant ,i still wonder why they've sold this iconic piece of American history- . One of the very early vintage products before the brand became diluted.

So what happened during the last few years that lead to this !?? Levi's closed down ALL north American manufacturing, and laid off 2000 employees, 7 years ago in 2003. NO Levi's product has been made in the US or Canada since! that is to my humble knowledge .How ironic ,that lately,they've tried to capitalise on the old "American work force" image and the made in America concept too...

Levi's used to be made with 14.5oz Cotton and they now use 12oz cotton. The main reason for the move was the price point. Walmart would not sell Levi product until they could make it profitable for them. Till 7 years ago ,you could not buy Levi's at Walmart. For any product that Levi list at $50, Walmart wants to be able to sell it for $30 and make $15 on it. So Levi had to get their cost down to be able to whole sell a pair of jeans to Walmart at $15, so their material and productions cost on a pair of jeans is around $7 i guess. It seems that was not possible with American made 14.5 oz cotton jeans right!??.

This pair is a totally genuine rare product from my own personal collection and a collectors item in it's own right. The denim is 14 oz dark blue and quite hairy/fuzzy, and will improve dramatically with age. Inside label is stamped 555 as is top button[for Valencia st plant]. Cut is 1955.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Gregg's wife the always sharply dressed Kij....One for the road Mr G sipping wine at Lori King's "salon style" party .....A good one!!!It's all about the details......

One year already!??

Fun ride so far. I wish i had more time to post more often ,as i use to do in the beginning . It takes time to take pictures and make them interesting and so on....The most rewarding fact is that ,by finally "coming out of my grotto" ,i've met some nice people ,made some interesting acquaintances ,got some projects in the work and even made new friends .

talking about friends ,i've decided for this anniversary post,to let my good friend Gregg Greenwood the only person that i really respect as a true passionate about vintage and "friend of the arts", to be the editor for one day,let him share is knowledge,perspective and rant as much as he wanted to,on the vintage world .

so here's Mr G unedited in is own words.....

Old clothes. An addiction and passion of mine from when a kid in the 1950s. A pre-school digger, on the prowl exploring grandma's trunks & attic and the dank corners of post WWII Army-Navy surplus stores. And the goal always to wear, never ever merely to collect. Like it all, formal wear, suits, uniforms, and work wear, from all eras--18th century thru 1960s. Strive to wear the full range of stuff as much as possible, made easy by the goings on in San Francisco.

What a big difference between wearing work wear and my other vintage men's clothes. Who notices selvage denim, 506 jackets, A2s but fellow travelers, maybe .001% of the public. Work wear collectors belong to a secret society, the cognoscente. You go under the radar wearing it, except around fellow connoisseurs. To most, it just old battered clothes. So for me, it's been mostly a private passion.

When wearing my "other" vintage clothes I'm out there--a public act. The other stuff, Victorian, Edwardian, early-mid 20th dress clothing gets attention--in a big way. Wearing it is socially engaging, unlike the work wear. I find it great fun to wear, and best with a group. Hitting the hot spots in 1930s cars with clothes to match; arriving at the 1906 earthquake memorial in '06 autos and clothes--a scene from E. Gorey come to life. Even jaded San Franciscans turn a head and get delight. Or that night walking down Bush St. with 10 guys in Victorian frocks and toppers to the shock and screaming delight of a Goth chick by chance looking down from her window.

Yeah, the non-work wear stuff is great fun if you don't mind attention. And such an active social scene: tweed rides, steampunk events, Edwardian balls, speakeasies. The old clothes break out of the closet and get to live it up. Some times dead-on correct period dressing, other times enjoy trashing the rules and mixing it up, the fun and abandon of steampunk and Edwardian kink.

Work wear's collective seems to be more online, where it has a great virtual community, seen in many excellent blogs-such as Riveted!!!. Plus the Japaneses magazines, and lavish collector books. Great eye candy for devotees. Of course that's partly fueled by the commercialism that's driven the prices, shrunk the finds, and spewed out rude, voracious pickers and avaricious dealers. And such a serious crowd are the work wear folks in contrast to my fun loving "other" vintage clothes crowd. Must be the scarcity and the high value that makes work wear devotees so damned serious, intense, calculating and graspy--want a truncheon at times!!

What's gets me is how few collectors are as eclectic as me. I see little crossover between workwear collectors and other vintage clothes collectors. Often each turns their nose up at the other--what a narrow range of experience most people seek.

So at 60 glad I got a lot of good stuff before you young punks came on the scene. Relish my past finds almost as much as my past seductions, and plan to wear the stuff till it rots--sorry ebay carrion.

Yeah, a lot of great stuff was around in the earlier decades, and damn it, I should have bought more,more!! and store where, where??

So some random notes from a senior devotee on the current scene. Work clothes. What a rich irony the clothes worn by pro-union, leftist proletariats are now a .

Collecting just to hoard or to sell seems profane. But in recent years many buyers and diggers, seldom a wearer.

elmets down at the fire station.

Of, course, never has been just the clothes. It's the quest, the search, the exhilration of the find. And the history. Repos, a regretable but thankful addition.. Want the my stuff imbuded with the past, reeking of it, stained by it. Lived in it. That's the magic and allure of old clothes to me: the time they've traveled.

I can't do it, so next best is to slip into the stuff that has: 19th century frocks, WWI uniforms, battered leather jackets.

What era, style? The gamut. 19th century belle eqopue,

Original vs. repo. Close link with history. Magic power of old clothes, invested with romance and connection to period history. What did that 1930s suit from a Berlin tailor witness?

Collect to wear. Collectors, dealers, and wearers. No inhibition in wearing weird stuff.

Monday, August 9, 2010

The front of the shirt featuring the standardized [machine cut] stencil.......The back and it's spectacular custom made "blue on white" stencil.....

First, i was a little reluctant to do this post, as i know how "pseudo designers" are abundantly shopping for ideas on the net and are struck by sudden amnesia ,when it's time to cite their sources or at least post a link out of courtesy ......well!! what are you gonna do !??

This rare example was from the estate of a former seabee,who fought in the pacific during ww2,unfortunately nothing else is known about it's former owner.The shirt ,most definitely game used, is in a rough shape and almost "baked" under the arms ...way too fragile to be worn . So i think i'm going to make myself a copy ,just for the fun of it and who knows !?,perhaps start a short run on vintage sweat shirt too..........

Monday, August 2, 2010

Just as found a pair of TREDS from ARCO :the soles stapled to the original ad from 1944...

I couldn't help i had to see what's under...

At the beginning of World War II, a rationing system begun in the United States. Tires were the first item to be rationed in January 1942 because supplies of natural rubber were interrupted. By November 1943 more items were added to the list such as : passenger automobiles, typewriters, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, fuel oil, coffee, stoves and of course footwear. As a result ,many companies being part of the war effort,came up with original products and palliatives.some of them are still around today.The main idea was : YOU HAD TO MAKE IT LAST.......

ARCO started in Auburn, Indiana, in 1913 as the Double Fabric Tire Company, it made tires for the Auburn Automobile Company. In the 20s, the company changed its name to the Auburn Rubber Company [ARCO], phased out its production of tires and introduced new products such as shoe-soling sheets. In 1935, it began making rubber toys, including toy cars, trucks, tractors and animals all sold in "5 and dime" stores .it was the company's biggest success . During World War II, the company made soles for combat boots and gaskets for"jerry cans."